A FORMER girlfriend of child killer Robert Howard has said she feared she could have been his next victim.

Patricia Quinn told a Coroner's Court in Belfast she was locked in a room for two days while visiting the paedophile in Scotland.

She also described Howard as an evil, manipulative charmer to whom she was vulnerable.

She said: "For two days he kept me locked in. He kept the keys down the front of his trousers.

"Only he fell asleep, I could have been the next one."

The inquest is investigating the death of missing teenager Arlene Arkinson from Castlederg in Co Tyrone, who vanished after a night out across the border in Co Donegal in August 1994.

The schoolgirl was last seen in a car with Howard, who was acquitted of her murder in 2005 by a jury that was not made aware of his conviction for murdering 14-year-old Hannah Williams from South London several years earlier.